Exporting Outlook Addresses to Palm
Posted by: garyi on 23 November 2004
After getting my palm working again I wish to put some addys on it from the Outlook at work.
What I think should ba an easy task is being hampered by bloody windows.
The addresses are on a server somewhere in the ether, but if a select a given contact and right click I can add it to my personal address book.
However this is stored as a *PAB file in the harddrive which can only be read by outlook.
So I goes to import - export in outlook, again this seemed promising, I choose a file type then it gives me only the options of the various outlook folders to export. The contacts folder does not contain my personal addresses (If someone can explian that to me that would be great!)
So basically the addresses in my personal adress book cannot be exported in any way, I have been looking and looking and basically am stuck now.
Any ideas how windows won the war?
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Mekon
Didn't you ask this before, and determine that you needed to buy some software?
A quick look on google hints at an alternative: in outlook, export your contacts to a csv file. import the csv file with palm desktop, then sync your palm with that.
I have no idea whether that works, as I use a PPC, and I just plug it in.
I've just re-read your query - here's how I export my contacts
file/import and export/export to a file/comma separated values/(select folder to export from)contacts/(save exported file as)
Works for me - don't get why it shouldn't for you unless you are using exchange, and your 'contacts' aren't stored in a local address book - I have no idea what to do then.
[This message was edited by Mekon on Tue 23 November 2004 at 11:26.]
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by garyi
I think I did ask before I downloaded some software which asked me to look for a file which dosn't exist.
You can't export address information as a CSV in Outlook.
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Mekon
Well, I've just exported my 'contacts' folder to a .csv file, opened it up with excel - sure enough, all the info is in there.
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by garyi
Mekon, I am guessing you had to manually enter the contacts info in that folder, there is no way I can find to get addresses from the global address book into that contacts folder!
Any ideas?
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by Mekon
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by MarkEJ
Gary, this is worth a try.
Select any contact in your Outlook address book, irrespective of where the data actually resides. Try dragging it somewhere else which isn't part of Outlook. If you're lucky, you should get a .vcf file -- one for each contact you dragged. Alternatively, you may be able to "Export contacts as .vcf" or somesuch.
.vcf would be your best bet, as both MacOS X Address Book and Palm Desktop for Mac 4.x will import them just by dragging them into the relevant window.
Failing this, you will have to resort to exporting to a single file (csv or for preference LDIF as it will retain Groups), which means a bit of dicking arround importing the file into Palm Desktop (which is excellent software, and has an interesting history). Don't rush it as it's very easy to get the data in the wrong fields, and the field set is radically different between Outlook and PD. If you do get it wrong, it's easier to sling the contents of ~/Documents/Palm/User Data/[your name] than to delete all the contacts and start again.
Best;
Mark
Posted on: 23 November 2004 by garyi
Thanks Mark, as it goes Mekons link has worked a treat. Basically outlook express can import data from outlook then export it as character seperated.
What a polarva!
Cheers Mekon
